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The Honey Offensive

I got stung by a bee the other day, and there’s a pretty simple reason why: we have a honeybee problem.

That’s right, Casa de Stan has been infested with honeybees who have taken it upon themselves to congregate around the bushes near my office. There are some minor cracks around there, which is more than likely how a honeybee made it under the house, through an air duct (or possibly through the hole in the floor we ran Ethernet cables through), and into the office to caress my inner thigh and then sting my hand.

After a brief family meeting, we came to a unanimous conclusion: the honeybees must die.

Hour 1: Research

We knew the bees were honeybees, as opposed to the many other disgusting varieties of bee that hang around, because they roughly match the online photos we found of honeybees. But, since they aren’t bumblebees or yellow jackets, or the more menacing wasps or hornets, how exactly do you kill honeybees?

The simple answer: hire a professional. Apparently, honeybees don’t really like to make hives. They actually like to usurp sections of people’s homes to build their combs, which can cause tons of damage (in addition to horrible smells once the honey starts to rot). This way, they can create more combs to secrete honey or whatever it is that they do.

Because of this, you need to hire a professional. Honeybees breed like rabbits, so attempting to murder them on your own will only make the remaining bees angry, and they will in turn attempt to destroy you. It’s kill or be killed, but professionals have the gear not only to eradicate all of the bees, but also to destroy the honey somehow and assess any damage to the house.

In short, professionals are the way to go.

However, if you choose not to hire a professional, the easiest way to destroy the bees is to spray them with a mixture of water and laundry detergent. Apparently, whatever is in laundry detergent makes bees die really, really quickly. My personal suggestion was to find the hive, cover it in flypaper, and then smash it with a hammer. The theory was that the bees would instantly fly from the broken hive and get stuck to the flypaper. Then, I’d take a screw driver and decapitate them.

So, my parents went on down to Sears Hardware to load up on industrial-strength laundry detergent and get a power-sprayer/detergent-mixing-in attachment for our hose.

Hour 2: Alone in the Dark

I was left home alone, so I decided to play in a poker tournament with Meron. A few hands passed, and I was doing moderately well in the game. But then, horror struck.

A bee suddenly floated up from behind my filing cabinet. It was staring directly at me, although it seemed more excited by the lamp next to the cabinet.

“Huh,” I said and continued with the game.

Then, I realized something: it was a bee. Like the one the stung me. Only still alive.

This situation needed to be rectified. By me.

I went into the kitchen and grabbed the Raid. I examined the bottle and found that it was not approved for murdering bees. I thought about trying it anyway, but I thought that the only thing worse than a bee totally ignoring me was a bee that was really pissed at me and wanted me dead. I didn’t want to get stung again.

So, I waited it out. My parents eventually came home and informed me that this can of Raid will, in fact, destroy the bees. So I made it dead. Then, I plugged the Ethernet hole with some paper towels. It should be secure enough to keep the bees out.

Hour 3: Genocide

Armed with a garden hose and laundry detergent, my father went outside and decided to blast the hell out of the bees. I would have helped — I’m out for blood; I would’ve done it myself — but we read that bees localize attacks when they smell the venom of their fallen. Even though the venom was, theoretically, supposed to be fresh, we thought it best to not take any chances.

So, I stayed inside and watched the Bears game and talked with Lucy on the phone. She’s doing well, incidentally.

Hour 4: The Sting, Part II

The front door blasted open and my father lumbered in. He’s a large guy (fatter than me, either), so I heard the stampede from my bedroom and came out to see what the hell was going on.

“The goddamn son-of-a-bitch stung me!” he shouted. “More than once!”

He jumped on the floor, laid down, stretched his foot out on the seat of his recliner, and tried to pull his sandal off.

“You went out to spray the bees in sandals?” I asked.

“I told him not to,” my mother said.

“You’re retarded,” I told my dad.

He let out a sound that onomatopoetically translates to AAAAAHSSSSSSSSGLABADAGUH. Literally, it translates as, “I’m hurt, shut the fuck up and help me!”

My mother ran and made the baking soda-water compound that didn’t help me at all and smeared it all over his toe. He left it on for about half an hour, then switched to the ice pack. He calmed down a little bit, and my mother insisted he reacted “like more of a baby than Stan.”

The details went like this: he was spraying in his sandals, one live bee hanging near the ground managed to break through his perimeter fire, and it managed to wedge itself between his toe and his sandal. There, it got stuck, so it stung him at least three times (he thinks it was six total) before it got out.

Hour 5: Magic Hour

Shortly before dusk, we all went out to admire our progress and to spray the bees once more. The area around the bushes was literally carpeted in dead honeybees. There were still more — there have to be millions hiding in there — but the detergent works.

We’re going to keep spraying them, at least three times a day, until they’re mostly dead. When winter sets in and they all die out, we’re gonna go under the house and try to find and destroy the hive.

Yet another reason why winter is my favorite season.

Tags: Bears game, bee sting, bees, breeding, crawl space, dad, genocide, honeybee, horror, insects, laundry detergent, Lucy, Meron, murder, parents, poker tournament, professional, Raid, research, run away, sandals, Sears Hardware, stung, water

Posted by Stan on September 8, 2003 2:08 PM  | Permalink  | Print-Friendly  | Stories of Pain and Humiliation | Digg It